1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a field of electronic transactions at vending machines and/or stations. Specifically, the present invention relates to settlement of accounts and transactions at vending machines.
2. Background
Traditional credit card processors do not currently break interchange fees down by individual transactions applied to individual machines by individual transaction time and date. This makes it nearly impossible for the vending machine host and the route operator to know the actual interchange rates going through a machine across a particular reporting period. Such information is crucial for the effective management in the vending route business.
Currently, some elements of the full service vending arm of the soft drink industry face a serious problem in reconciling the cash in vending machines that sell at multiple prices. Until very recently, full service bottler (machines that the soda bottler fill and settle themselves) sold vending machines at a single price, which enabled the following equation to work for settlement: Cash Removed=Product Filled=Machine Meter Values.
Until recently, most of those bottlers that read the machine values (DEX) did so manually, by pressing a re-set button inside the machine: the cash value would display on the front of the machine and the driver would write it down. This system of audits and controls worked only so long as the machine in question sold at a single price. More recently, bottlers introduced hand held devices to manually enter information. Again, auditing was dictated by balancing inventory filled to cash removed.
Today, there is a major marketing push to put products of different price points in the same machine. The key driving force behind this is the need to increase vend price as well as the multitude of premium priced products (e.g., water, Starbucks coffee, energy and natural juice health drinks, etc.). The problem is that there is not enough demand to put all of a single priced beverage in a single machine. While the bottling industry has responded with new glass front machines designed to merchandise up to 40 different products at many different prices, these machines cannot be deployed by some full service bottler operations because the current single price accounting and audit system cannot provide an acceptable audit control system for multiple priced machines. Moreover, the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) now makes such control systems a necessity.
Thus, there is a need for a better system for reconciliation and settlement of a multiple vending machines capable of accepting cash and credit card payments for items vended. The system will keep accurate auditing of all transactions made using the vending machines and provide a funding report to the vendor identifying such transactions and sales made.